theyouth in northernuganda are significant actors with a complex relation-ship to land matters. With 78 per cent of the total population under 30 years old, there are 6.5 million people between 18 and 30 years old in Uganda.63 Nationally, around 83 per cent of young people have no formal employment.64 A sizeable percentage of them were born at the time of displacement and grew up in camps, while others were abducted by the LRA and conscripted into rebel ranks, and have not been re-integrated adequately. These young people have experience using guns and can be militaristic in their approach to conflict resolution.
All these factors make the youth in Northern Uganda vulnerable to manipulation, for example, in becoming parties to land conflicts. The majority of those born in camps cannot be certain of their family boundary demarcations and, in cases where their parents are dead, they rely on community or family elders to show them their boundaries, putting them at risk of being exploited. The need for economic empower-ment was cited by participants in this research as the major cause of youth involveempower-ment in land conflicts especially arising from land grabbing and illegal or contested sale of family land.
Paul Olweny, the acting Local Council 3 (LC3) Chairperson of Lokung Sub-County, says that young people “are used to fighting and destroying crops. They normally end up getting injured after being incited by elders and other people who take advantage of them. Whenever there is a fight and we go to the scene, we find them and not the people who incited them.” At the same time, Olweny argues that youth lack proper guidance from elders on land-related issues.65
Land sale by youth in Northern Uganda is increasing according to the majority of respondents across the seven districts of this study. This has been intensified by high poverty levels and the need to meet basic needs by the affected youths, the majority of whom are unemployed because they missed education opportunities during the war and therefore cannot favourably compete in the job market. Without a guaranteed or potential source of income, selling land is considered the only option.
This has pitted the affected youth against their family members and others opposed to selling land, especially in Acholi sub-region. Many respondents blamed a growing culture of ‘no hard labour’ among the youths, resulting from several years of living on
5.1 Young people as significant actors
5.2 Increased
involvement in
land sale
saferworld 21
66 Uganda Bureau of Statistics quoted in About Uganda, UNDP, available at: www.undp.org/content/uganda/en/home/
countryinfo/ (accessed 18 March 2014).
67 Focus group discussion at Lamogi Sub-County on 1 November 2013.
hand-outs while in IDP camps, for making sales of land more appealing than its utilisation for productive agricultural practices.
Under the customary land tenure system, youth do not own land; they may only utilise land as allocated to them by their parents or clan elders. This means that decisions on land sale should not be made by youths but rather should go through consultations and processes agreed by parents and/or elders. This occurs successfully in Lango sub-region, reducing conflicts over illegitimate land sale by the youths according to research participants. The Lango Cultural Foundation has ensured that all customary land sales follow a documented process of consultation and participation of all parties known to have a stake in the land; the sale agreement has to be signed by a cultural leader, a local council representative, a family member and the buyer.
In Guru-guru, Lamogi Sub-County (Amuru District), the research team saw several advertisements selling land by the road side, clearly substantiating the views of the people interviewed. The youth are accused of threatening and even killing elders, demanding that the elders tell lies about land boundaries, all to their advantage. The lack of truth-telling in land management and conflict prevention is further perpetuating land conflicts.
Marriage and the responsibilities that come with it can cause conflicts over land.
As young people become eligible for marriage (18 years old), peer pressure mounts for them to own land. As a result of population growth (one of the world’s highest at 3.2 per cent annually66 – even higher in Northern Uganda – demand for land is also growing. It was reported that in some instances three to five adults from the same family marry at the same time and the demand for separate homesteads and land allocation for cultivation increases correspondingly.
Box 4: Selling land for dowries
In Lamogi Sub-County, Amuru District, Mandela, a youth involved in a boda boda (motorcycle) transport business said that his brother sold two acres of land in exchange for five goats because he needed goats for the bride price (dowry). He added that the five goats were not enough so he expected more land to be sold off soon. “We are not happy with him because our family is expanding and we need this land,” said Mandela.67
Some of the youths who are allocated land for family settlement and other develop-ment purposes go on to sell their portions, arguing that they have no other source of income after their cattle were taken away during the LRA war. Even young people involved in productive activities were also said to be selling land with the intention of investing the proceeds in other sources of livelihood, such as chicken farming and retail shops. Young people interviewed for this research gave the following reasons for land sale: the need to purchase motorcycles (boda boda) for commercial transport use, purchase of alcohol, and being able to pay the dowry (in the case of men). The need to pay school fees was also mentioned, but respondents said that there were fewer such cases.
Youth involvement in land conflicts has gone beyond the family level. Increasingly, youths in Northern Uganda are seen as ‘fighters for and protectors of land’, particularly due to the high level of unemployment in the region, although these ‘fighters’ are often without guidance. In a focus group discussion with members of the Area Land Committee in Padibe East Sub-County in Lamwo District, youth were likened to
‘an army without a commander’.
5.3 Youth
involvement in
land conflicts
68 Interview with the Local Council 3 Chairperson of Itirikwa Sub-County, Adjumani District on 12 December 2013.
The LC3 Chairperson of Itirikwa Sub-County in Adjumani District said, “Youth in Itirikwa Sub-County are ready to fight over land matters with the Acholi tribe.”68 In September 2013, youth from the clans of Palakwee and Toro in Amuru District clashed violently over a piece of land shared by both clans; they used pangas, bows, spears and arrows and homes were destroyed. Poultry, goats and cows were killed.
Police intervened and calmed the situation, but some people from Palakwee clan were displaced to Omeewang in Amuru Trading Centre while the perpetrators from Toro have gone into hiding.
23
69 Christine, a widow in Acwera village, Amuru Sub-County in an interview on 1 November 2013.